


A Signal in the Heavens

by beaubete



Series: Guided By the Beauty of Our Weapons [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:49:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's equal parts shame and atonement, misguided as always, but it's the thought that counts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Signal in the Heavens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [3littleowls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3littleowls/gifts).



> A gift for my darling 3littleowls and all of her invaluable help while I was working on Guided By. Thank you, my darling, for both the help and the support, and more besides.

It is, even on a good day, difficult to fool Q; when Q wakes somewhere near Vienna, the look of betrayal on his face is almost enough to quail Bond into turning around to go home.  He stops in Bratislava for petrol.

“Why are we here, James?”  Q’s voice is quiet, thin.

“I have a surprise for you.  I told you,” Bond says, and even he can tell it’s not the right thing to say from the way Q’s eyes pinch, dropping away compliantly.  Yes, Bond said he’d had a surprise; he hadn’t mentioned--

“Okay.”  It’s not.  “I trust you.”

And Bond thinks back, doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve Q’s faith in this because he’s gotten used to the way Q expands when he’s happy, wide shoulders and starfish limbs and eyes that have room for entire universes in them; he’s forgot entirely that this Q is an option, too--Q small and shrinking smaller, folding himself up to take up less room and closing off the parts of him that are too tender and vulnerable to defend from hurt.  He frowns, scooping Q into his arms to nuzzle at his temple.  “We can go home if you like.  I’ll run you a bath and you can spend the rest of your leave coding in your pants; I know that makes you happy.”

Q shakes his head mutely but he curls into Bond’s embrace just the same, tucks his head of riotous curls beneath Bond’s chin and lets Bond breathe him in.  He can smell Q’s shampoo, his washing up powder and his tea and the musk of his skin, the dozens of tiny smells that make up Q’s whole, and when his fingers clench hard against Q’s ribs, Q makes a soft, happy sound that’s exactly like waking up at three in the moonlight with Q’s happy, dozy eyes on him.  He squeezes tighter until Q squirms against him and they step away from each other, the petrol station filling in behind them like watercolor coming to life.  There’s a high flush on Q’s face and Bond feels proud of that as he coaxes him back into the car.  He doesn’t even complain when Q finds his half packet of twiglets, even despite the stench of marmite being sublimated into the Aston’s fine-grain leather seats.

The iron gate is familiar when they approach; inside, Marie’s is still the same as it was the first time he stayed here.  Everything is, and it’s not until he’s on the stairs with Q behind him that he realises what a monumentally stupid thing it is he’s done, how hurtful.  He drops his hand back and Q squeezes it, comforting his nerves even as he walks like he’s headed to the gallows, himself.  Bond’s free hand curls around the cut glass knob and he almost doesn’t open it, almost hustles Q back down into the Aston Martin.  They can skip this, can go to Paris and make love slow and sweet to the sound of traffic from the window of a hotel in the Champs-Elysees wrapped in dressing gowns thick and plush and nubbly against their bare skin.  They can take the car to Oxford, find some out of the way path where he can lay Q down in the grass and English sunshine until he’s pink with it and writhing.  They can try Valencia and he can tipple Q with Spanish wines red and thick and unctuous as blood spiced hot and sweet and crisp as the seaside air.  Q pushes the door open.

It’s not the same room, and thank Christ for that.  He knew--unless Marie’d moved their old room up a level and to the other side of the building--but he’d feared, terrified in these last few moments that he’d open the door and there’d be that hateful gap….  Q’s eyes go wide and soft and when Bond looks at the bed, he knows Marie’s got it just right.  He’d sent her photos, tried to describe in stumbling Romanian the dense confections he’d seen; he watches as Q kicks off his shoes and plants himself in the center of the bed just exactly as he’d done in Moldova, in Bucharest.  There are enough thick pillows and duvets he’s nearly swallowed in the sensual fluff.

“Bond,” Q says.  His toes wriggle from beneath the pile of bedding.

“I thought--” Bond starts, and he’s suddenly more nervous than he can remember being in a long while.  “--only that--”

“James.”  Q’s voice is sweet, and when he finally manages to wrest himself out of the bedding to meet Bond’s eyes, he looks fond.  “You couldn’t have any more obviously planned this if you’d had the sheets monogrammed.  Come over here, you silly, romantic arse.”

Q’s arms are warm, firm and sure around Bond’s neck as he leans over him for a kiss; he drags until Bond’s off-centre, tipping him into him until they’re aligned, every inch of him pressing Q’s thin frame into the bed aside from Q’s octopus arms and legs.  Q squirms beneath him, laughing breathlessly as Bond touches him reverently.  Bond can feel Q’s heartbeat thrumming in his throat beneath his fingertips and Q is wriggling, tugging off first his pullover and then his shirt before leaning back against the sleek silk to work at his belt and flies.

“Q?” Bond asks, because while he adores Q’s single-minded focus, it’s the knit brow that concerns him.  The look Q shoots him at the worry in his voice is sunny, disarming.

“You’re going to fuck me, Mr. Bond,” Q informs him succinctly.  “Quite soon, I should hope.  You’re going to hold me down until I can’t even slip on these gorgeous sheets anymore, and then you’re going to fuck me.”

“Oh?” Bond asks, laughing.  “Am I?”

Q doesn’t even dignify that with a response, just snakes his hand past Bond’s waistband to wrap around his cock.  His thin wrist is distending the tailored cut; the bump of knuckles that must surely be skinned now is obscene in the front of his trousers.  Bond reaches down to still him with one hand, opening the fabric with the other, and with more room to work, Q’s fondling is more brazen, more enthusiastic.  Bond groans.

“You’ll be the death of me,” he pants, and Q’s grin goes wider.

“Yes.”

When Bond surges to kiss him, Q melts into the bed, pale against the luxurious dark creme of them.  His hair already looks tangled and he lets Bond muss it further with his hands, using handfuls to guide him gently as he presses kisses to his earlobes, to the mole on his neck, to the corner of his mouth where a delighted laugh is hiding.  Q makes a startled sound when he latches onto a patch of skin just below the curve of his jaw; by the time Bond sits back, satisfied, there is a purpling love bite marring Q’s skin and his eyes are bruised with lust.  His body’s open, legs spread, and Bond helps him out of his trousers but leaves him in his pants as he sits back to undress as well.  Tie, collar, cuffs, buttons--Q makes grabby hands at his shirt when he drops it off, fingers curling eloquently around the fabric to nose the inside where Bond knows the smells of his shaving cream, his soap, his cologne, and his body still linger.  Q’s eyes are wide and drugged over the wad of cotton.  Bond has never felt more attractive to a lover.

“Yes,” he murmurs nonsensically against Q’s skin when Q lets him; he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to, doesn’t care, just dips the tip of his nose along Q’s throat to follow the faintest scent of sweat--growing stronger now as his body warms--to an armpit, lingering in the pheromones until Q rocks his hip and reminds him that there’s a more potent source nearby.  The navel is diverting; he lips at it, tongues the edges until Q is curling his thighs around his shoulders to coax him down.  “Yes,” Bond sighs again, and this time he knows what he’s talking about.

Q’s cock is warmer than the rest of him by degrees, hot at the tip and hotter in the secret hollows where it joins his body.  His pants are clinging, spread the warmth until he’s a soft hot thing Bond can mouth against, letting his tongue dip out to trace the heft and weight of it as Q goes still and quiet and watchful beneath him.  He smells--they’ve been in the car for the better part of the day, hours-long in sleepy sun and Bond can taste the cotton of his pants, the heavy thick flavour of his arousal, even imagines he can taste the leather of the Aston’s seats and something like a road trip that started with Q singing along loudly to the radio and ended with Q’s face pressed against the glass as he snored.  He smells gorgeous.  Bond lifts his leg to the side and nuzzles his face in deeper, edging at the leg of Q’s pants until there are slender fingers there, nudging him until they can curl over the edge and hold the grey jersey aside.  When he looks up the length of Q’s body, Q is watching him.

“Go on,” Q says.  A shiver starts at the base of Bond’s spine.  He obeys.

It’s a mouthful of black hair at first, wiry and immediate, until he can nudge Q’s fingers with an encouraging nose to pull the fabric a bit further out, exposing--it’s dirty, doing it this way; it feels illicit and potent in a way that feels like a hand around Bond’s bollocks, gentle and teasing and merciless.  Then there’s skin, glimpses and flashes of it between the hair and the fingers and Bond licks, tastes the salt-sweat taste of him and presses in with his face again, hungry.  Q is something to be devoured, to be stroked with lips and tongue and teeth; he bites at the hair beneath him and Q makes a high, pained sound that’s all made of the sweet tremble in his legs and the flushing pump of precome through the cotton by Bond’s face.  Bond kisses it, relishes the way Q’s legs twitch, and sits back.

There’s lube in the shaving kit he’s left on the nightstand, and he can feel Q’s lust-black eyes on him when he draws it out.  He’d say something snappy, but Q beats him to the punch, rocks up on his heels to thrust at Bond’s hands.  “Are you going to finger me, Bond?” Q asks.  Bond nods; he’s not sure he can manage words.

And they’ve done this before.  They’ve done it sweet and slow and delicate as a girl on her first date and he’s milked Q until he’d thrashed in Bond’s arms and threatened to take Bond’s bollocks off if he didn’t fuck him right that very moment.  There’s no resistance as he sinks his first two fingers in slicked and shining as Q moves with him.  He’s hot, so hot and ready and eager; the keening sound he makes when Bond thumbs at his perineum while he strokes firm and solid inside is almost enough to set him off.

“Your hands, Bond.  Your--Christ!” Q moans low, and he’s trying to cover his face with the hands that are clenched in the bed’s pillowcases but he can’t make his grip loosen; he covers himself with the pillows until Bond laughs tenderly and eases them free, and Q latches instead to his ears, dragging him in for a loose, wet kiss.  “Your fucking fingers,” he swears, and Bond can feel the tremors starting up inside, the way his orgasm starts deep until it shivers out to the surface and leaves him trembling, legs splayed and hips thrusting open as he comes all over his vest and the soft skin of his throat, to say nothing of the ruined silk sheets.  He’s still shivering, pulsing with weak aftershocks when he reaches down almost idly for Bond’s cock, hard and patient against his thigh.  “Now.  Please,” he says, and Bond has never been able to turn down such a sweetly-worded request.  

He doesn’t last long.  Barely a handful of thrusts and then he’s pulling out, coming languid and urgent in the tangle of Q’s pubic hair and Q’s laughing, curling protective arms around his head because he’s got a week to prove his prowess but only now to prove his desire, and they tuck their foreheads in until he’s sure their thoughts have melded but it’s honestly just that Q is asleep, his curls sticky with sweat and love and his breathing slow.  And Bond tucks him into the hollow of his shoulder again, strokes his damp hair, and knows he’ll be nowhere else but here when Q’s eyes open again.


End file.
